Over 300 writers, scholars, and public intellectuals have pledged to not contribute to the New York Times’ Opinion section until three demands have been met. The demands address the anti-Palestinian bias in the paper’s op-ed pages, which have been a frequent target of criticism during Israel’s genocide and war. The writers are withholding their labor until the Opinion pages take “accountability for its biased coverage and commits to truthfully and ethically reporting on the U.S.-Israeli war on Gaza.”
The group of “writers of conscience” include Rima Hassan, Rashida Tlaib, Kaveh Akbar, Sally Rooney, Tareq Baconi, Viet Thanh Nguyenm, Greta Thunberg, Elia Suleiman, Plestia Alaqad, Hannah Einbinder, Andreas Malm, Isabella Hammad, Mohammed El-Kurd, Rupi Kaur, Jia Tolentino, Alana Hadidm, China Miéville, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, and many more.
Lit Hub’s Jonny Diamond and Dan Sheehan are among those who signed this collective commitment as well.
Almost 150 past Times contributors have signed the pledge, and the coalition also includes a number of Palestinian solidarity groups like Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), and the Palestinian Feminist Collective (PFC).
The pledge condemns the “paper’s decades-long practice of acting as a bullhorn for the Israeli government and military,” its “anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases,” and makes three demands:
1. The newsroom must conduct a review of anti-Palestinian bias and produce new editorial standards for Palestine coverage.
2. The newsroom must retract the widely debunked investigation “Screams Without Words.”
3. The Editorial Board must call for a U.S. arms embargo on Israel.
There is more detail in the group’s longer statement.
For Palestinians, the consequences of Western media bias can be lethal. The pledge’s statement opens with a quote from Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat, who wrote, “Language makes genocide justifiable. A reason why we are still being bombed after 243 days is because of The New York Times and most Western media.” Shabat was assassinated by Israel months after writing this.
“We owe it to the journalists and writers of Palestine to refuse complicity with the Times,” the statement concludes, “and to demand that the paper account for its failures, such that it can never again manufacture consent for mass slaughter, torture, and displacement.”
The full statement and list of signatories are on boycottdivestunsubscribe.com.